I.M. Pei, acclaimed architect who designed the Louvre’s pyramid, dead at 102

I.M. Pei, who was revered as one of the last great modernist architects, has died, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners confirmed. He was 102 years old.

Although he worked mostly in the United States, Pei will always be remembered for a European project: his redevelopment of the Louvre Museum in Paris in the 1980s.

He gave us the glass and metal pyramid in the main courtyard, along with three smaller pyramids and a vast subterranean addition to the museum entrance.

Pei was the first foreign architect to work on the Louvre in its long history, and initially his designs were fiercely opposed. But in the end, the French – and everyone else – were won over.

Architect I.M. Pei has died at the age of 102. Here, he's seen in 1985 with an architectural model of the Louvre Pyramid in Paris. Click through the gallery to see his life and work in pictures.

Luce Memorial Chapel, Tunghai University, Taiwan —

A Christian chapel on the campus of Tunghai University in Taichung, central Taiwan, the Luce Memorial Chapel is named after an American missionary who traveled to China in the late 19th century. Completed by Pei, working with Chen Chi-Kwan, in 1963, its walls are made of reinforced concrete, designed to withstand earthquakes and typhoons.

Dallas City Hall, United States —

Completed in 1978, Dallas City Hall is the seat of Dallas's municipal government. Pei designed the building as an inverted pyramid, with public areas on the lower floors, and office space on the upper floors. His idea was that visitors should be able to access the attractive spaces in the lower stories easily, without having to navigate through a maze of offices.

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston, United States —

When I.M. Pei met John F Kennedy's widow, Jacqueline Kennedy, in 1964, he explained that as a relatively young architect, he did not have experience of working on monumental projects. Nonetheless, Kennedy thought Pei was so filled with promise and imagination, that she chose him -- from a list that included American's best-known architects -- to design her late husband's library. The library, which was finished in 1979, consists of a stark white, nine-story tower, with a contiguous, geometric, light-filled, glass-and-steel pavilion.

National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. —

Pei designed the modernist, wedge-shaped East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington to fit into its tricky, trapezoid-shaped site. To create visual harmony, Pei built the exterior with the same pink marble -- dug from quarries in Tennessee -- that was used to construct the museum's older West Building. The East Building opened in 1978.

Louvre Museum, Paris —

Made of glass segments and metal poles, I.M Pei's stunning pyramid serves as the public entrance to Paris's Louvre Museum. Situated in the Cour Napoléon, the main courtyard of the Louvre Palace, it is surrounded by three smaller pyramids. Since it opened to the public in 1989, the pyramid has become a much-loved Paris landmark.

Louvre Museum, Paris —

A photo taken on July 28, 1988 shows a general view of the construction site of the Louvre Pyramid.

Bank of China, Hong Kong —

The Bank of China Tower, which houses the headquarters of the Bank of China (Hong Kong) Ltd, is one of the most distinctive skyscrapers in central Hong Kong. Completed in 1990, its four triangular towers were inspired by bamboo plants, which represent prosperity and revitalization in Chinese culture.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, United States —

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which rises above the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, opened its doors in 1995. Despite knowing little about rock and roll, Pei designed a building that captures the drama of the music, with bold, pyramidal forms anchored by a 162-foot tower.

Miho Museum, Shigaraki, Japan —

The Miho Museum, named after its founder Koyama Mihoko, stands on a forested hill in a nature reserve near the town of Shigaraki, southeast of Kyoto. Completed in 1996, the museum offers sweeping views of the surrounding hills. The walls and floor are made of French limestone -- the same material used by Pei in the entrance hall of the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Suzhou Museum, China —

Although I.M. Pei grew up mostly in Hong Kong and Shanghai, he was born in Suzhou, so the commission to design the Suzhou Museum had unique personal resonance. Pei chose to combine his modern, geometric, architectural hallmarks with elements of traditional Chinese design. The museum has whitewashed walls and a gray roof, and a large Chinese garden with an artificial pond. Inaugurated in 2006, it houses a collection of Chinese paintings, calligraphy, arts and crafts, and excavated artifacts.

Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar —

In the mid 2000s, I.M. Pei -- by then in his late eighties -- was coaxed out of retirement to design the Museum of Islamic Art in the Qatari capital, Doha. Pei embarked on a world tour to learn about Muslim architecture and history. Having visited Spain, Tunisia, Syria and India, it was the austerity and simplicity of the ablutions fountain at the 9th century Mosque of Ahmad Ibn Tulun in Cairo, Egypt, that inspired his vision. Built on an artificial island, the museum is clad with creamy limestone that captures the changes in light and shade during the day.

Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar —

The museum's 164 foot atrium, hidden from view outside by the walls of a central tower, is crowned with an oculus that captures light from the desert sun and reflects it in patterns on the facets of the dome's walls.

Celebrating the life and work of I.M. Pei

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At its opening in 1989, the New York Times declared the pyramid “a technological tour de force: it is exquisitely detailed, light and nearly transparent.”

“The pyramid does not so much alter the Louvre as hover gently beside it, coexisting as if it came from another dimension,” wrote architecture critic Paul Goldberger.

As a young man, Pei counted himself grateful to have learned from some of the great modernists: Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Alvar Aalto and Le Corbusier. (He favored owlish, round-framed glasses much like Le Corbusier’s.)

Winning the fifth Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1983, he was cited as giving the 20th century “some of its most beautiful interior spaces and exterior forms … His versatility and skill in the use of materials approach the level of poetry.”

A photo taken on July 28, 1988 shows the construction site of the Louvre Pyramid designed by Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei.

A storied career

Ieoh Ming Pei was born in China in 1917 into an affluent family. His father was a banker. His artistic mother – a calligrapher and flautist – had the greater influence on him.

Despite not speaking English, Pei chose higher education in the United States and took a boat from China to San Francisco in 1935.

After studying architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, Pei set up his own architectural practice in New York in 1955.

Winning the commission to design the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum in 1964 established him as a name. Awarded just a year after Kennedy’s assassination, this was the most resonant and coveted of commissions.

The John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, designed by architect I.M. Pei.

Jackie Kennedy made an emotional, personal choice in picking him over the likes of Louis Kahn and Mies van der Rohe.

His East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington in 1978 altered people’s perceptions of a museum. The site was an odd trapezoid shape. Pei’s solution was to cut it in two. The resulting building was dramatic, light and elegant – one of the first crowd-pleasing cathedrals of modern art.

“Some people say I’m obsessed with geometry,” Pei said in a 2009 documentary. “Maybe I am, but that’s what I believe: I think architecture is … geometry in solid forms.”

His subsequent major commissions included the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas (1989), the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong (1990) and the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar (2008) .

In person, I.M. Pei was dapper, good-humored, charming and unusually modest. His working process was evolutionary, but innovation was never a conscious goal.

“Stylistic originality is not my purpose,” he said. “I want to find the originality in the time, the place and the problem.”